It's now exactly one month since I posted anything on this site, and yet according to the statistics people are flocking to read it. According to blog.co.uk, I am averaging 19 readers a day, each of them making just under two page views. This is far higher than when I wrote on a regular basis, so my inertia is obviously fulfilling some public need. Perhaps there is a large group of people for whom the world moves just too fast, and who find comfort in regularly revisiting a supposedly active web page which in reality remains static for weeks on end. Or perhaps the half dozen people who actually read this are using word of mouth to get two new people to look at it every day. Either way, by doing nothing I'm clearly doing something right, so I think that may be the way ahead for this weblog.

I was watching 'The West Wing' last night. I realise it's perceived as something of an elitist cliche these days to say you like 'The West Wing', but I genuinely do. [In a similar but slightly different vein, I read an article recently which said that Stevie Wonder's 1970s albums are ones whose names people often drop to try and impress, but to which nobody truthfully likes to listen. Surely this isn't true? I love those albums passionately. In fact I think it's time to re-draw my banner to reflect that fact.] Anyway, 'The West Wing' is an unparalleled piece of television writing - it moves at the speed of light, assumes its viewers have a brain and is full of dialogue redolent of the golden age of Hollywood. Its only failing is that occasionally it allows itself to fall prey to the sort of jingoistic self-importance endemic to American political life - but then it was made for the American market, and we would do the same here. The reason I mention it is that in last night's episode the president made a flag-waving, emotive but ultimately rather vapid speech which was clearly supposed to be stirring to the audience. Later on in the episode one of the characters complimented the author of the speech on the great writing. It's only this morning that it's occurred to me that both those passages were written by the scriptwriter (the extraordinary Aaron Sorkin), and how odd it was for him to get one of his characters to praise the writing of one of the other characters - in effect he was patting himself on the back. Odder yet is that by his stellar standards the piece in question was most mediocre. It made me realise how writers are often the worst judge of their own material. It must be galling to create art and have to surrender it to the whims of an audience, but ultimately that's the deal you make by going public. You can't stop the show to point out to your viewers which bits they are supposed to admire. Like it or not, they will make their own judgement.

Mind you, when it comes to self-appraisal I'm a fine one to talk. I still think I peaked early with this entry:

http://captainautumn.blog.co.uk/2005/12/14/the_brevity_of_busted~385279